THE REVIEW

HOLDING DOWN THE FORT

Annette and Cougar joined me last night for the latest Meeting of The Rams. Unfortunately, Charity is still recovering from her summer health issues, but she’s hoping she’ll be well enough to make the next Meeting. We sure hope she gets better soon.

Cougar read first, Chapter 6 of his novel. It sees Eric arrive in Iceland and describes the scenery and how uncertain he’s feeling about his journey and about communicating with Elfa. The last section of the chapter tells about Aoal being sexually propositioned by the office girl. This chapter was mostly about setting and seemed to be a pause in the story. We suggested that it might need a hook towards the end to keep the reader wanting to turn the pages to find out what happens. I did like the descriptions of Iceland, though, and Cougar said he had spent hours viewing Iceland online in order to tell what it looked like. His words did capture a very bleak looking landscape.

I read another short story I just wrote called “Penny Pincher”. It’s about a female senior who struggles with a limited income but is talked into attending her niece’s lavish wedding, which means an overnight stay away from home. Due to her brother’s involvement in gambling, the wedding turns into a blood bath and the protagonist ends up being grateful for her own circumstances. Cougar and Annette said they found the story riveting, but we all agreed the beginning needs some work. Rather than starting with the character’s introspection, it might work better to have a scene that includes dialogue with another character to introduce the conflict. I will do some work on it to improve things.

Annette didn’t read anything. She said she had started writing a story, but was distracted. She is still dealing with so many things since her husband died and focusing on writing just isn’t happening. It was amazing she showed up last night, and Cougar and I were both grateful for her input.

After our readings, Cougar and I both agreed critiquing the other’s work helped us see what needed doing with our own. That is the advantage of a writers’ group, learning from each other.

Next Meeting will be Wednesday, October 3rd at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Hope to see you then. Keep writing!

Lisa A. Hatton
Author